Interestingly enough, there are only two people in my life I have felt were worthy of aquaintance with the art of black metal and they were both about 28 at the time. Both were never exposed to any metal previously but were familiar with classical literature, and had an underlying sense of the downfall of humanity and the world. I thought it was great to have seen intelligent outsiders have such a great reception to it as previously I would have agreed that you can't really appreciate it unless you grew up with it.

If I knew nothing of planet earth and i lived on some space station, I would fantasize about epic mountains, black skies and all the chaos mother nature is capable of. This album embraces all beauty and ugliness of the north. I would choose this above all the OP's albums because it has nothing to do with the hocus pocus man-made religion, Christianity. All its ties are to the beauty of mother north, something worth keeping around for eternity.